Stranger in a Strange Land

Robert A. Heinlein

May 1987 · Sold by Penguin

About this ebook

Robert Heinlein's Hugo Award-winning all-time masterpiece, the brilliant novel that grew from a cult favorite to a bestseller to a science fiction classic.

Raised by Martians on Mars, Valentine Michael Smith is a human who has never seen another member of his species. Sent to Earth, he is a stranger who must learn what it is to be a man. But his own beliefs and his powers far exceed the limits of humankind, and as he teaches them about grokking and water-sharing, he also inspires a transformation that will alter Earth’s inhabitants forever...

Ratings and reviews

One of my favorite books of all time. I love the mix of some science-fiction wrapped around a sexual-social alternate that makes you question the limits and filters which we receive from the society that we grow up in. An easy page-turner, and definitely one of the top classic sci-fi books for anyone who wants to explore the facets of humanity and constraints of our world views.

Starts strong and interesting, but devolves into weakly told religious critique. While I don't fundamentally disagree with the message - it feels like a disingenuous mishmash. Scifi fans who buy this based on taglines like "best-selling scifi novel" may be disappointed at the abrupt change of tone and overt anti-religious sentiment that is hinted at nowhere in the descriptive blurb.

I have read a few of his books and sadly I must go against the flow on any love of this book. Most of it was beyond my not only my comfort zone. But also my tastes. There seemed to be less of the tension that other of his books provide. And just tons more of the sex and your thoughts on sex thrown up. But this is also my opinion for the book Friday as well. But I do love other books of his, to me this and Friday were just total misses just like any other author who has a multitude of books. Your not going to like every one.

About the author

Robert Anson Heinlein was born in Missouri in 1907, and was raised there. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1929, but was forced by illness to retire from the Navy in 1934. He settled in California and over the next five years held a variety of jobs while doing post-graduate work in mathematics and physics at the University of California.

In 1939 he sold his first science fiction story to Astounding magazine and soon devoted himself to the genre. He was a four-time winner of the Hugo Award for his novels Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), Starship Troopers (1959), Double Star (1956), and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966). His Future History series, incorporating both short stories and novels, was first mapped out in 1941. The series charts the social, political, and technological changes shaping human society from the present through several centuries into the future.

Robert A. Heinlein’s books were among the first works of science fiction to reach bestseller status in both hardcover and paperback. He continued to work into his eighties, and his work never ceased to amaze, to entertain, and to generate controversy. By the time he died, in 1988, it was evident that he was one of the formative talents of science fiction: a writer whose unique vision, unflagging energy, and persistence, over the course of five decades, made a great impact on the American mind.